Value of Gold Watches

Gold Watches Part 1

Who Buys Vintage Gold Pocket Watches

14K Pocket Gold Watch Dis Assembled

How Buying Gold Watches Works

In this four-part article, I explain, from the point of view of a gold buyer, how buying gold watches works.  The objective of this is to help others understand the scrap value of a gold watches.

Since 2009, when I started as a gold buyer, I have bought literally hundreds of gold watches.  It is sad to say it, but most of them ended up taken apart, for the carcass to be melted for its gold content.  Gold watches are a form of utilitarian jewelry.  Thus, they are sold new, and used, at jewelry stores.  Eventually they fall out of fashion (especially in the case of lady’s gold watches), become too expensive to repair, or are just not used enough to justify keeping them, so they get sold to gold buyers and such professionals. 

Most gold watches qualify only for getting taken apart to be melted.  The main exception to this is Rolex gold watches, and a few other comparable high end, premium brand name gold watches.  Patek Philippe watches match that category too.  Lesser know premium brands often sell used for a lot less.  This latter type, even if nice, are most often hard to sell, thus they end up scrapped too, or at best sold for their fine gold content.

Rolex Gold Watches

Rolex watches are the most marketable used premium watches as long as they are in very good shape.  Even like that, Rolex gold watches often get melted for their gold content.  This is the situation; it is very expensive to tune a Rolex watch.  If done by Rolex, as I write this article, tuning a Rolex is over $500, and it has to be done every around five years.  Not only that, it is just that selling a used Rolex gold watch can take a long time even if it is in awesome shape. That is why most of them sell for about their melt value or a little bit better.  Thus, as a far as used watches go, given that they are gold, they are a great value.  Another issue to consider with Rolex gold watches, is that if they have been used enough, and for a long time, eventually the gold band starts getting worn out, and no longer holds straight.  The gold band is very heavy, and most often made of 18K gold.  The solution, in that case, is to replace the gold band with a leather strap and sell the band for its scrap gold value.  That is one of the reasons there are so many used Rolex watches with leather straps.  Two-tone Rolex watches have bands of steel links with intermediate solid gold accents.  In that case, the watch band is worth only the value of the gold links.

Bullion Gold Watches

Bullion gold watches are watches that have gold bullion as a component.  The typical gold bullion component is the dial.  True gold bullion watches, although stylish, are designed such as to have a specific fine gold content.  The best example of this are the German made Degussa gold bullion watches.  These gold watches have full one-ounce troy gold coin, typically a Krugerrand, as the dials, and a 18K gold housing.   Being gold bullion watches, they are specified for their fine gold content, which is 1.44 Ozt, which is basically 45 grams.  A gold buyer will most likely pay for working, great condition, that does not need anything Degussa gold bullion watch pretty close to the spot market value of its fine gold content.  Another feature of the Degussa watches is that they use a common, rugged, and vastly successful Swiss quartz movement.  There is no tuning, only battery change every almost half a decade.  If the movement fails, it can be replaced inexpensively.  Of course, there are other present-day gold bullion watch makers.  Gold bullion watches have always existed, it is just now a days they don’t make too many gold bullion pocket watches.